In the first week of 2025, Southern California erupted in a deadly firestorm that started in Los Angeles County, where the wildfires killed 28 people and burned about 90 square miles. Thousands of homes and businesses were completely destroyed and over 30 people are still missing. The root cause of the fires is under investigation by the LAFD and federal agencies.
The fires are completely extinguished with the Palisades and Eaton Fire ranked second and third worst in California history, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Winnie Ng, a San Francisco State University public health student and LA resident, was back home during winter break when the fires occurred. She spoke about the challenges the fires made for her parents, who are elderly.
“We had a lot of Amber Alerts going up, probably three per day going off,” Ng said. “And then we had another alert saying it was a false alarm. So that unnecessary fear was worse for my parents because they’re old. It scared me.”
The fire originated in what scientists call the wildland-urban interface, a zone of transition between wilderness and human activity where over 200,000 people were evacuated with countless animal fatalities.
For SFSU computer science student Sofia Brazda, the fires hit close to home.
“I’m from LA, and some friends of my family were affected by the fires — the Eaton Fire specifically,” said Brazda. “They lived in Altadena.”
Brazda echoed Ng’s frustration over discrepancies with the warning system.
“There was some confusion about if they should actually evacuate or not,” Brazda said. Unfortunately, those family friends did lose their home in the Eaton Fire.
A GoFundMe fundraiser was created for an Altadena resident who lost his home in the Eaton fire.
Extremely powerful winds called the Santa Anas were the reason why the fires spread so quickly. The Santa Anas are an annual, natural phenomenon in which air pressure builds in the desert at high elevations, and around autumn in California, the pressure gets released repeatedly. As the air descends to lower elevations, it warms and dries out as it gets squeezed through canyons and mountains, which causes further warming and drying of the air mass. When this air reaches sea level, it is warm, very dry and moving rapidly. This phenomenon, mixed with humans’ current energy infrastructure, creates a dangerous setting for wildfire to spark, according to a 2018 study done by the National Academy of Sciences.
Last year, California had a wet winter, statewide, prompting grass growth in the WUI. However, a very hot summer dried out the grass and last January had little rain. When fire struck, the WUI was primed to go up in flames. Expanding human development in the WUI further raises the risk of loss on this warming planet.
Events like this can and have occurred in the Bay Area. The Oakland Firestorm of 1991 killed 25 people in October and was spread by the Diablo winds, a similar weather feature of Northern California.
Disasters like these leave unanswered questions of whether or not better ecological management, in regards to land development or controlled burns, could act as a preventative measure.
